


Ships Passing

by orphan_account



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: F/F, S3 References, canon character death, the rape warning is canonical and only refers to the incident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 08:19:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14765945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Marina disappears three months before graduation.  Margo finally understands why Magicians are so fucking unhappy.





	Ships Passing

Julia is frozen, staring off into the woods.

“There’s a patch on your friend’s memory, quite crude.” The Watcherwoman glances at Quentin, brow furrowed. “Made in haste, likely by a Hedge.”

“Could you remove it?”

“No, it’s there for a reason.” She reaches forward, smooths Julia’s hair against her head, and closes her eyes. A scene flooded with white light and clean, bright power plays. Julia looks happy, suffused with awe. She looks at a redheaded man and smiles. It’s two dimensional, sloppily pasted into Julia’s memory like a kindergarten art project. As Eliza probes further something dark and bloodstained peeks around the edges.

“Covering something...recent. Something tragic. Replacing it with something beautiful but false.”

Eliza’s heart clenches sympathetically as she pulls away. “If you still care about her -”

“Of course!” Quentin interrupts. 

“Protect her.”

***

“And you, Daughter of Earth.” Ember chuckles before he tilts his head and hums. “Your mind is encumbered. A shroud.”

Quentin’s eyes widen as Ember steps closer. “No-”

“What?” Terror rises, snatching her heart and crushing it in a terrible vise. Her head whips between Quentin and Ember and she steps away from the god.

“Crudely made.” Ember continues, moving closer still.

“Ember, no. It’s okay.” Quentin stutters, words tripping over his tongue as he tries to stop him.

The god smiles benevolently, sounding pleased as he says, “I shall remove it.”

“Remove what?” The words are barely out before Ember strikes her.

A moment later she’s on the floor, patch gone, and she watches her friends die again at the hands of Reynard.

***

If Julia had been looking she would have seen Q’s heart break, face crumpling as she told him what the patch hid.

If Quentin had been less focused on the Beast, he would have known she would do anything to get revenge.

***

Alice is choking on her own blood. Eliot and Margo are slumped over, motionless. Penny’s hands are next to him as he screams. Martin smoothly rotates on a heel and saunters towards Quentin as he scrambles away on the floor.

“Quentin Coldwater.”

Quentin’s vision closes in on Martin’s face.

Martin smiles.

Julia’s arm snakes around, blade coming to rest above Martin’s perfectly knotted tie. “Wait.”

“Stronger as well I see.” Martin’s voice is hushed, attention on the weapon. “So many surprises.”

Julia stares up at him.

“So,” his voice takes on an edge, “what do you want?”

“Jules,” Quentin implores from the floor.

She makes a deal.

***

At first Margo is pissed as fuck about Julia’s betrayal. She literally can’t see past the white hot anger or breath past the fear tightening her ribcage. The threat of the Beast coming back any second to finish them off again is enough for her fucking quote Game of Thrones even though El won’t be able to snark back because he never fucking read them even though she got him a boxed set for his birthday last year.

So, yeah, at first she’s mad.

But then, when the Beast stays missing and Alice starts mastering the Rhineman Ultra and it feels like there’s might be a little bit of hope that they could survive, Margo gets it. If a god had his way with her, she’d go fuck shit up, too.

So when she meets Julia again she asks, “what’s your plan?” and Julia looks at her and quirks a little half smile.

As plans go, this one is pretty damn good.

Too bad Eliot will never forgive her for abandoning him when she said she’d be back faster than a ball on a bungee cord.

***

She fucking hates Martin. Thankfully, Julia does, too, and they escape together as much as possible, huddling in the corner of the public library with sketch books, whispering ideas and burning through pencils as faster than the coffee they conjure. When the library closes they reluctantly trudge back to Julia’s loft, dread filling them as Julia’s key unlocks the door with a snick and it swing open to the worst Broadway show to exist.

Three days in, Margo snaps and tells him to shut up or lose his jewels. He smiles beautifically as he waltzes past her, singing at the top of his lungs. She trembles, sitting on her hands s she won’t do something idiotic like try to strangle him when Julia reminds him he doesn’t need a tongue to help her.

For the next four hours it’s blissfully quiet as he watches I Love Lucy on Margo’s Netflix in the guest bedroom.

***

Then he pops in, hand on the shoulder of a woman struggling against her restraints, and removes her hood with a flourish.

Margo gasps, “Marina?”

Marina glares balefully above her gag.

She leaves after refusing to be fucking bait. Margo can’t blame her. Reynard is one sick motherfucker.

***

She’s back, somehow paler than before, veins pulsing blue beneath translucent skin, shivering with shock. She promises to help them get the bastard who shoved his hand into her friend’s stomach and ate her heart.

Margo gathers her up and holds her tight as she falls apart. The next morning she wakes up as Marina pulls away, pulling up shields and barring the gate. When she comes out of the bathroom she looks at Margo with steely blue eyes, winged eyeliner sharp. Margo discreetly wipes her hands on her jeans, trying to dispel the buzz on her palms. She wants to fall on her knees and worship, grasping at Marina’s feet.

***

The first time Margo stepped past the Brakebills wards, she was escorted to her test by a thin, angular woman with an outfit to die for. The next day she goes on a campus tour, trailing behind this third year goddess who smushes peons beneath her stilettos, hair whipping, cracking the air, as she points out landmarks. Margo thinks she finally found what she wants to be when she grows up.

They spend too much time together. Margo may have found her platonic soulmate in Eliot but she has found her guiding light in Marina.

Marina disappears three months before graduation. Margo finally understands why Magicians are so fucking unhappy.

***

So when Marina gathers herself up to step into the ritual, Margo catches her hand, pulling her back.

”Let’s go Ned Stark on this bastard.”

Marina stares at her, shocked, as Julia politely looks away, providing the pretense of privacy as Margo slides her hand behind Marina’s neck and pulls her slowly, deliberately, into a kiss.

Marina surges forward, taking control of the kiss, tongue pushing insistently until Margo submits and opens her mouth. After a moment she pulls back, nipping along Margo's jawline, tugging on her hair until she tips her head back and sucks a bruise high up, where Margo can't hide it. Then she steps away, tossing a razor sharp smile over her shoulder.

***

When Julia sinks down beside Marin's twisted corpse, Margo presses a hand against Marina's mark.

Two weeks later the Beast is dead, Alice is dead, Quentin might as well be dead, and the hickey has faded. She buckled up her shit and holds El's hand tightly as she pretends she's at all ready to rule the fucked up kingdom she inherited.

***

By the time Loria tries to screw them over Margo has 3 little half moon scars under her jaw. She fucks Prince El like there's no tomorrow, hard and desperate, and pulls out every trick in the book she learned from Marina about showing who's boss.

It's Marina's voice she hears as she orders him to kiss her hand, Marina's mouth she feels when she shoves him down her body, Marina's hair she feels as she procures a whip and slides over her hands before cracking it over his head, Marina's heat she feels as she collapses on him, panting.

When the threat of Loria is dealt with and Fillory waves goodbye to their misogynistic asses a second set of nail marks appears on her throat, just below the first.

***

El knows something's wrong but he's too busy dealing with his shit - literal, actual shit - but he knows something is wrong with her. She smiles and deflects, blaming the Fairy Queen and her new cyclops status.

At least she gets to start a new fashion. No boring pirate patches, she's going to get the fucking prettiest, deadliest eye covering crowns. Her favorite has a removable steel wire.

***

Somehow things work out in the Upside Down Fillory. Sort of. Well not really. She forgot everything for a while and became Janet. At least she was still a badass.

When she remembers she isn't sure if she's happy or not. On one hand she hadn't thought about Marina or the gaping hole in her heart for months. On the other, she now knew why she kept seeing crazy shit. A Fairy eye was pretty fucking cool.

Then there's Eliot. Most of what's left of Margo's heart shatters.

***

Then Julia shows up with a guest. Margo's breath catches as she gets a glimpse of a pale, slender arm, black stars tattooed on the inside, bracing against the wall by her head.

The top star says 178.

Margo can't breath as she slowly turns, taking in the long, straight auburn hair that's draped over a thin shoulder. Her eyes drift up slowly, taking in the delicate chin, a scar just to the left of ruby red lips, and a slightly upward curved nose before reaching those blue eyes that stripped her bare and built her up again in seconds. A moan built up and died in her throat.

Marina crooked a brow and smiled. "Miss me?"


End file.
